Today I stumbled upon this photo from July 29, 1965, attributed to the Toronto Star. The caption read simply — and with no quotation marks at all; just stated plainly — Marquise De La Passardiere. I hated every minute of it. Well. I had to know more.
The Marquis De La Passardiere seems to have been a French producer, and the French variant for his wife would be a marquise, so this seems as if it might be the actress Lilo — not to be confused with Lindsay Lohan — whom he married in 1974. And if it IS Lilo in this photo, then I also found an article about her written entirely in French from when she celebrated her 100th birthday this past March in New York, where she has lived since she was hired in the 1950s by Cole Porter to be in Can-Can. I would like to pretend that I am fluent in French and read the whole thing that way, but in fact I pasted each paragraph into Google Translate and learned:
- She’s since performed 900 times on Broadway
- She’s known as The Marchioness of New York
- One of her countrymen threw an appreciative bouquet of flowers on-stage for Can-Can and was arrested for it, because that wasn’t done on Broadway
- She said her secret to life is to surround herself with people who make her laugh, and “my other secret is to be French, to annoy the people around me.”
I ALSO annoy the people around me! We are soulmates! So now I love her, and want to see her biopic — maybe Lady Gaga, twice featured today on GFY, is looking for something to do? — and I also desperately want to know what “I hated every minute” meant on this day. Did she hate her husband? (Per that story, no, but memories fade and flatter over time.) Did she hate the flavor of that OTHER brand of cigarettes? Driving in a convertible? A new musical that made her soul scream? Did she loathe the performance of a nemesis, or is she quoting a review of one of her own performances? Is she describing having to look at someone’s pants? Was her wedding night just the absolute pits? Did the photographer hate every minute of shooting her?
And more importantly, IS THIS EVEN REALLY HER? Here is a photo of Lilo from… a point in her life. It’s possible? It’s also possible this is a random lady who is just having a REALLY BAD DAY and needs to let it out over a four-martini lunch with some Marlboros. Give or take the details, Potential Lilo, we have all been there. We feel you. You are all of us. I HATED EVERY MINUTE OF IT will be the epitaph of Covid-19, after all.
